Early Language Abilities May Protect Memory Decades Later

[Francis Hult]

ABC News

 

Early Language Abilities May Protect Memory Decades Later

 

Women with sophisticated language as young adults were less likely to suffer the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease in old age -- even when the characteristic brain lesions associated with Alzheimer's were present at death, researchers found. 

 

The importance of these skills -- measured by the "idea density" in an essay they wrote early in adulthood -- held for women with intact cognition, regardless of whether a brain autopsy showed the hallmark plaques and tangles of Alzheimer's, Dr. Juan Troncoso of Johns Hopkins University and colleagues reported online in the journal Neurology.

 

Full story:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Health/AlzheimersNews/story?id=8035304&page=1

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